Xaggeration

If it's just a USB dongle with a bunch of code and whatnot on it, couldn't you just order one, copy the code and put it on the net for others to download and place on their own usb dongles. $170 bucks seems a little expensive for code and a jumpdrive. Couldn't you just buy the game you wanted? lol

Whats the error message say?

The program your talking about gives people who buy a PC with Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate a "free" upgrade to their respectible couterparts: Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate once the new operating system ships. People who buy an "eligible" PC between June 26, 2009 and Jan. 31, 2010 qualify for the upgrade. Although almost every brand of computer makers are chargeing for the upgrade, only 10-15 bucks, but rediculous none-the-less. And more than likely, it'll be like the upgrade process between XP and Vista. A month after the release date of 7, you'll get your copy. But hey, Windows 7 looked promiseing, maybe Microsoft has actually started doing something right.

I use Slimbrowser/Firefox/and Chrome. Slimbrowser for it's ease of use. Firefox for it's add-ons and Chrome cuz I'm trying it out. And Firefox is as safe as any other browser. The reason firefox is getting more exploits and such is because it is becoming more popular. As with any program, no one is going to bother exploiting a little known program. Theres no point. If only 3 people use one program and 300 use the other, which would you exploit if you were a hacker/cracker? I don't know about you, but I'd hit the 300. Now as Firefox is gaining ground in the browser race, more people are looking for exploits in the browser. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Looking at that chart alone, any hacker with half a brain is going to hit up ie and firefox. They hold the most to gain from if exploited. Your Opera browser is only that safe because no one is going to bother trying to hack a browser which only takes up .68% of browser usage.

Trist me, there are plently of people navigateing the net without lives....

I have Ubuntu as a partition on both my laptop, and this pc. Although I haven't used it in a long time, I still find it very fun and versitile.

Congradulations. Hope you have many many wonderful years of marriage!

Might have been a hardware compatability issue. As Linux isn't as widely used, Not every setup is supported 100%. I know mine took awile, but not 45 min. But I'll let you all know how dual booting on my laptop goes. I can't wait to load a bunch of pretty neat software on it. Beryl mainly.

I ran it off live cd. I loved it. I think I'm going to try dual booting it on my laptop tomorrow.

Thursday marks the official stable release of Ubuntu 7.10, but by Wednesday -- with the Ubuntu community Web site ticking off the time as "1 day to go" -- the Internet was awash in glowing tributes to Ubuntu's latest advancement. Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for desktops, laptops and servers. In preparation for the event, developers got to work with a release candidate, ensuring one last round of testing before going live. Going 3-D and Green The highlights of the latest release include 3-D desktop visual effects that raise the appeal of using the system; a new security layer; automatic printer installations; hard-disk encryption options; tailored kernel feature optimized for virtual appliances and an idle-mode feature that results in savings on power and heat. With the latest release, tagged as "Gutsy Gibbon," the writing is on the wall, or, to be more specific, on Wall Street. Ubuntu's commercial sponsor, Canonical, is set on placing Ubuntu on a growth path on the enterprise level. Support Signs "Given that organizations are leery of trying out unknown or unsupported software, the fact that Ubuntu has gained support from major systems providers such as Dell and Sun should help," Clay Ryder, president of Sageza Group, told LinuxInsider. "Right now, it is unlikely to unseat Red Hat or Novell from the number 1 and 2 spots, but overseas Red Hat is not the leader, and both distros are controlled by North American companies," he added. Earlier this year, Canonical's reps saw encouraging signs at a virtualization show in the U.S. Those circling the Canonical wagons could no longer be typified as tech enthusiasts as much as people from traditionally "conservative" business sectors, government agencies and energy suppliers. On the eve of the official release of 7.10, that is pretty much where enterprise uptake stands, on the edge of the network, but inching closer within. People are prototyping and experimenting with new applications or virtualization, Canonical's marketing manager, Gerry Carr, told LinuxInsider. "This use of Ubuntu is extremely widespread across all industries, and we are starting to see that use move into production," he added. Energy Conscious Nonetheless, one feature being highlighted by technical types is the new "tickless kernel," tied to easing up real-life business issues of power consumption and missions toward going environmentally green. "Any business interested reducing their power costs or simply trying to save space -- the more VMs (virtual machines) the fewer actual machines and racks -- would find this advantageous," Carr said. As good as Ubuntu's technology advancements may be, Canonical's business future may largely rest in building out sales and support. "Technocrats and developers will always be defining which solution is technically 'better,' but ease of support and purchase thereof is a greater concern," Ryder said. "Applications are the ultimate driver of deployment, not the operating system itself." If Canonical is set to win over business customers, it will not follow the open source vendor herd in terms of charging business users for an "enterprise edition." Canonical's management makes no distinction. In Class by Itself Its revenues come solely from commercial support contracts and custom engineering services. Not unrelated to its popularity has been its consistent championing of the principles of open source. That is unlikely to change, according to Carr. "We won't produce an enterprise model in the sense of it being exclusive to payers," he said. "Ubuntu is developed and supported by its community and it would be wrong for us to deny that community access to what is essentially their own work. We take the view of charging people only where they truly need support and moving toward revenue that way." Source: TechNewsWorld

A Web site that leaked details of Windows XP Service Pack 3 over the weekend claimed that the update includes several new features, including some borrowed from Windows Vista. According to NeoSmart Technologies, Windows XP SP3 build 3205, which was released to beta testers on Sunday, includes four new features among the 1,000-plus individual hot fixes and patches that have been issued since XP2's debut three years ago. Features backported from Vista, said NeoSmart, include Network Access Protection (NAP), an enterprise policy enforcement technology that inspects client PCs before they access a corporate network, then updates the machines if necessary or blocks them if they don't meet specified security criteria. Other additions range from a kernel module containing several encryption algorithms that can be accessed by third-party developers, to a new Windows activation model that doesn't require users to enter a product key. Microsoft had previously announced SP3 support for NAP, which is part of Windows Vista and will be included in the not-yet-finalized Windows Server 2008. Windows XP SP3, which Microsoft has said will be released early in 2008, will be one more move by the developer to extend the lifespan of the six-year-old operating system. Last month, for example, Microsoft gave Windows XP a five-month reprieve by pushing back the end of retail sales and sales of XP-powered PCs by large resellers to June 30, 2008. And last week, Microsoft debuted a new "get-legal" program that lets companies purchase large quantities of Windows XP Professional licenses through their usual resellers. Microsoft was not immediately available for comment on the leak, or the new features touted by NeoSmart. Source: Computer World

Microsoft is extending the time it will allow original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and retail outlets to sell PCs with Windows XP as customers continue to balk on upgrading to Windows Vista. Microsoft had planned to stop selling XP through OEMs and retailers on January 31, 2008, while custom system builders have until January 31, 2009, to pre-install XP on machines. But because sales of Vista PCs have not been as strong as expected, OEMs and retailers have asked Microsoft to extend XP's availability. OEMs and retailers will now have until June 30, 2008, to sell PCs with Vista preinstalled on machines, Microsoft said. Retailers also can sell XP out of the box until that time if they choose, the company said. "While we’ve been pleased with the positive response we’ve seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista," Microsoft said in a press statement. Microsoft also is extending the life of Windows XP Starter Edition, the version of XP for emerging markets. The software will be available until June 30, 2010, so users in those markets can take advantage of low-cost, hardware-constrained PCs that Vista may not be compatible with. Vista requires hardware upgrades that most PCs running XP do not have. Per Microsoft's policy as of 2002, a new Windows OS would stay on the market about four years after its original availability date. But XP was released on Oct. 25, 2001, more than five years before Vista limped out the door to consumers January 31, 2007, after several delays and a major code overhaul. Microsoft had high expectations for customer adoption of Vista, and claimed the launch would be one of the most successful in Windows history. Unfortunately for the company, those predictions so far haven't panned out, and in July, Microsoft lowered its projections for customer adoption of Vista. The company had said the split between XP and Vista sales in its fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, would be 15 per cent to 85 percent; now the company is saying the split will be 22 per cent XP and 78 per cent Vista. Source: Pc Advisor

Mozilla Corp. updated the preview of Firefox 3.0 to alpha 8 late yesterday, unveiling for the first time to users several security features it's talked up for months. Among the security provisions debuting in the new alpha of "Gran Paradiso," the code name for Firefox 3.0, are built-in anti-malware warnings and protection against rogue extension updates, according to documentation Mozilla posted to its Web site. The malware blocker, which was first mocked up in June, will block Web sites thought to contain malicious downloads. The feature, a companion to the phishing site alert system in the current Firefox 2.0, will use information provided by Google Inc. to flag potentially-dangerous sites, warn anyone trying to reach those URLs with Firefox and automatically block access to the site. Mozilla also pointed to a URL that demonstrates the new malware blocker for alpha 8 users. Also taking a bow is a check meant to prevent plug-ins' automatic updates from sending users to malicious sites where they might be infected by attack code or drive-by downloads. Firefox relies on small plug-ins -- called "extensions" in the Mozilla vernacular -- for much of its power and flexibility. Several thousand extensions have been written, the vast bulk of them by outside developers, that do everything from boost browsing speed to block irritating Flash animations. Firefox regularly checks to see if the installed extensions are up to date, and if not, automatically pulls in the newest version and installs it. "Firefox automatically checks for updates to add-ons using a URL specified in the add-on's install manifest," Mozilla spells out in a developer's document. "Currently there are no requirements placed on these URLs. In particular, [they are not] required to be https. This allows either the update manifest or the update package to be compromised, potentially resulting in the injection of malicious updates. A demonstration of one form of compromise is already public." Most extensions are hosted on Mozilla's own servers -- at the servers feeding its Add-ons site -- but some are not; it's those off-site extensions that Mozilla wants to lock down. To stymie attacks through a compromised extension update, Mozilla will require updates -- both the actual update package and the much smaller "manifest," or notification of an update -- to be delivered over an SSL-secured connection. Or the update must be digitally signed. The change doesn't affect the initial installation of an extension, something Mozilla recognized. "[This] has no impact on the security of initial add-on installs," it told developers in the online guide. This newest preview, which can be downloaded in versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from the Mozilla site, still comes with a warning to end users. "Alpha 8 is intended for Web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox should not use Gran Paradiso Alpha 8," the browser's release notes. Mozilla has not officially committed to a release date for the final version of Firefox 3.0. Source: Computer World

Skype users are being warned about a new worm. The Skype malware spreads through the peer-to-peer internet phone-application's chat feature. The attack begins when a Skype user receives an instant message containing a link from someone in their contact list or an unknown Skype user, said Villu Arak, a Skype spokesman based in Tallinn, Estonia. There are several versions of the chat messages, which are "cleverly written" to fool users, Arak wrote on the Skype heartbeat blog. The link appears to contain a jpeg photo file, but if clicked causes the Windows run/save dialog box to appear, which asks whether the user wants to save or run a ".scr" file. The file is malicious software that can then access a user's PC via Skype's API (application programming interface). The malicious file has been named W32/Ramex.A. "Users whose computers are infected with this virus will send a chat message to other Skype users asking them to click on a web link that can infect" their computers, Arak wrote. To avoid trouble, users should not download the file. At least two security vendors, F-Secure and Kaspersky Lab, have updated their software to detect the worm, Arak wrote. Instant message programs are another way hackers can try to gain control over PCs. Access to one person's instant messenger or email account can mean contact details for many others, allowing hackers to use malicious emails or instant messages to lure victims into downloading malicious software. Source: Pc Advisor

The first version of Ubuntu scheduled for next year will be called Hardy Heron and will be the second of Canonical's Linux products to feature long-term support. Ubuntu Developer Jono Bacon posted news of the new version on a mailing list and his blog on Wednesday. He invited interested people to submit feature requests for the release at its Launchpad site. Canonical will hold an Ubuntu Developer Summit in October 2007 in Cambridge, Mass., to hash out details and implementation plans, he added. Ubuntu's next update, Gutsy Gibbon, is due in October and will sport the version number 7.10, a reference to the year and month of its release. Following the six-month release cycle, Hardy Heron, or 8.04, is scheduled for release in April 2008. Hardy Heron will be the second release to feature long-term support, in which Canonical sells support and provides bug fixes for three years for desktop versions and five years for server versions. The first release to feature long-term support was Dapper Drake, released in June 2006. Ordinary versions have support for 18 months. Numerous companies and projects have emerged in recent years to challenge leaders Red Hat and Novell's Suse, but Debian-based Ubuntu is one of the few to gain any prominence. Ubuntu founder and Canonical Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth set up the project so that freely downloadable versions of Ubuntu are identical to the supported versions. In contrast, Red Hat and Novell only support versions that people pay for through subscription plans. Source: C|net News.com